


The Werewolf of Border Village

by Mairzy



Category: Night of the Full Moon(mobile game)
Genre: Blood, No romo, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 06:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17617235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mairzy/pseuds/Mairzy
Summary: A fic trying to explore how Jerry managed to keep the fact that he's a werewolf from his family.





	The Werewolf of Border Village

**Author's Note:**

> Runs on three basic assumptions  
> 1\. The werewolf is a natural state, no more violent than other creatures, but gets toxic when they are under stress  
> 2\. Jerry has two adoptive lumberdads. I did this because crocdad is my favorite character  
> 3\. Jerry's werewolf traits were late blooming since only one of his parents was a werewolf
> 
> I also underplayed Jerry's love for Red quite a lot. I mean, of course the kid loves her. They're best friends!
> 
> Oh and I ignored a bit of The Crocodile's description in lieu of Drama. I might change it back later once I figure out what the fuck happened with Red and Grandma going into hiding.
> 
> This stands alone, but I might add more to Jerry's story if I feel anything is up to par. I've already written a handful of other notfm fics but I didn't feel like any of them were good enough to share up until now.

He was nine years old the first time.

Not that he hadn’t reacted to the moon before. Child Jerry seemed to get a little more preoccupied and energetic that one day of the month, or so he heard. His dads laughed and said that Jerry was storing up energy for these ‘rambunctious periods’. Being muscular lumberjacks who had been hell-raising kids themselves, they weren’t daunted by a little boy who suddenly took to gnawing on the furniture.

But everything changed that day in the woods. Jerry woke up particularly energetic and ready to do an honest day’s work. It was the first day he cut a tree all the way through without one of his dads finishing or starting it for him. It was a thing skinnier than him, but he was proud. His dads cheered and he went on his Papa’s shoulders. 

It was while chopping the tree up into logs that he got itchy. Like, terribly itchy. Bugs on his skin and under it. His dads were in midst of some kind of argument. His Father had broken the handle to his axe and Papa was telling him he had to be more careful, and Father shouted back that he was being careful.

“Dads?” Jerry said weakly, but the lumberjacks got heated and the boy’s words couldn’t be heard. He groaned, and glanced up into the sky. Huh, the moon was up early. It was pretty up there in the blue, like a weird eye. An eye looking straight at him- inside of him, even.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He ran off toward the closest trees. Things got tight and even more unbearably itchy, and then suddenly, release.

Jerry ran. He ran faster than he had ever run before. A stream came into his path and he leaped over it with grace. He could smell the world around him- trees and squirrels and water. Everything looked and sounded beautiful.

He climbed a tree and howled with joy.

The howl took him by surprise. His howls had never sounded like that before. Actually, they had never felt like that before. He put his hand on his throat, but there was hair in the way.  
He barked, noticing his body. It wasn’t the way he recognized it. It was big and muscular, but not in the same way of his dads. Grey fur covered everything. His nose so long that it was always in his vision.

“Aia ray roof!” He said out loud, but it seemed that he couldn’t speak. I’m a werewolf. Somehow, it all seemed to fall into place, to answer a question he always had had.

He just had to show his dads! He jumped down from the tree and landed on confident paws. He realized that he was unfamiliar with this part of the forest. The trees had hard, bulbous bark and it seemed particularly close to the the source whatever it was that made it snow all the time here. He was scared until he realized he could smell his own trail.  
\  
He followed it back, and over the stream again, which he realized was more like a brook. He stopped himself and sniffed it. He could never leap over this without wading when he was just Jerry…  
He howled again because he was happy. It felt good to express how happy he was, so he howled again, and again. Then he followed the trail again. It wasn’t long before new scents entered his nostrils. Father and Papa! He had never smelled this before, not consciously, and yet now he knew that this was their smell.

He rushed toward it, into a clearing where the two men were standing back to back, holding their axes. He loped up to them, wagging his tail. “Roo rarr ree!” He ran a circle to show off his new form.  
Papa gasped, “There it is!”

“What’s that on it’s neck? Is that Jerry’s shirt?”

Huh? Why were they calling him an it? “Rawr? Ra-ra?”

“It hurt Jerry?” Father’s teeth showed, “I’ll skin it alive!”

Jerry yelped, and ran. His dads followed with determination. Jerry was faster, but every time he would take a rest, his dads would show up not long after. At one point he lost his shirt. It continued until dawn broke and Jerry was just too tired to keep running.

He woke up warm, but bruised and beaten. His fathers were over him. They cried and they hugged him and admonished for going off alone in the cursed forest, “Thank god we saved you from the werewolf in time!”

“But Papa-” Jerry said weakly. Everything about him was weak, and small. In a way, he hated how he was now that he had gotten to be a wolf. But at least he could talk.  
Father cut in, “If I ever see that werewolf again, I’ll turn it inside out and roast it on a spit!”

Jerry jumped. Father noticed and embraced Jerry, “It’s OK, son. You’re safe now.”

Jerry hugged him because he’d been robbed of words.

***

Everything was different after his first transformation. Although he still looked like a skinny little boy- no relation to either of his bear fathers- he found it easier to carry logs for longer and his reactions were faster. Even his wolfy sense of smell seemed to stick around,and he identified the unique scents of just about all the residents of Border Village.

His friend Little Red Riding Hood noticed, and she asked him to be a sparring partner. Jerry was clumsy was a sword, but easily bested her and hand to hand. He was particularly apologetic one day when he gave her a black eye. “I shouldn’t fight you anymore, I’m sorry.”

“No, please do! You’re really strong, Jerry. If I practice against you, I’ll just keep getting stronger,” she hissed as her grandmother pressed a cool steak into her eye, “I want to get as strong as I can possibly get.”

Jerry stopped going into the forest, though. It was suggested by his Dads. Jerry still wasn’t talking about his encounter with the werewolf, and his dads thought that he might be traumatized. They graciously offered to let him stay with with Granny Hope and Red while they went into the woods. 

A door was open, and Jerry couldn’t close it. He couldn’t put away his strength or his sense of smell in a box. Neither could he pack away the transformation. At first he was able to push it off until after his dads or the Hope family were asleep, but it creeped in earlier. Using herbs he’d gotten from the apothecary, he made his family get sleepy earlier on those nights.

Being a wolf in his or the Hope house was unbearable. There was the self loathing about what he was, the anxiety that he would be found out. Granny Hope had a shrugging attitude about werewolves, “They’re just creatures, like crows or cats,” she’d say. But somehow Jerry didn’t think she’d have that same attitude if she discovered him.

The wolf, too, was anxious on these nights. His paws would hurt because he wanted nothing more than to run freely. Well. Of course that’s not what he wanted, but his body wanted that. He also got hungry on these nights. Painfully hungry. He could stave that off by taking second and third servings for supper. His choice of space also kept his wolf self from being anxious. If he was free to wander the house, or even confined to his room as a wolf, he felt more anxious. He was much more comfortable when he put a blanket down in a closet or something, and locked himself in. Tight spaces soothed the beath. Sometimes he could even manage to in the closet.

The werewolf turned out to be an excellent excuse for itself. When his dads or Granny Hope found him naked on the floor of the closet, he could just say that he was scared of werewolves because of that encounter. This also served fine, as the years went out, to keep him away from the forest. Even during the broad daylight, Jerry would stay home. This perturbed Papa.

“How will he ever support himself if he never learns a trade?”

“Have you seen his craftsmanship?” Father said, “The boy’s an artist. He doesn’t need to cut wood like us.”

And indeed Father was right- Jerry was growing a love of carpentry. Every piece was a little more adventuresome- a little more intricate. His pieces starting fetching good money from the adults of Border Village. Jerry starting working commission.

And so Jerry persisted, maintaining a delicate balance of training and herbs and closets. He was happy, he told himself. Yes, he was surrounded by people who loved him- or part of him, anyway. And he could make beautiful things. This was more than a werewolf deserved.

***

Everything got worse when Father died.

Jerry was thirteen. Papa came home and Father didn’t. Papa was panting and wild eyed, and embraced Jerry, “Thank god you stayed here, thank god!”

The lumberjacks had been bringing wood back when they walked into a wolf pack. They defended themselves as best they could but the pack was out for blood. Then the forest Witch appeared in their midst, laughing, and created an explosion. One wolf was knocked back in the blast, hitting Papa who was knocked out.

When he came to, the wolves were gone. The Witch was gone, too, but there was a giant, bloody lizard chewing Father’s axe. When the lizard saw Papa, it rushed him. Papa attacked it with both axes and chased it under the water where it got away.

“What are you saying?” Jerry’s voice shook, “The lizard ate Father?”

“No son, don’t you get it? The lizard was just a scavenger. It was the werewolves. With that Witch!”

The Witch, of course. Jerry had heard rumor of terrifying blue haired woman who control a pack of werewolves for murder and mayhem. Werewolves...

It was the thing Jerry wanted to hear the least. Papa took him by the shoulders, “Oh Jerry, I’m so glad you stayed here with your friend. Jerry, you can’t ever, ever encounter a werewolf.”

“I won’t,” Jerry said weakly.

“You have to promise me you’ll never go into the forest!”

“But I never do!”

“Promise me,” Papa had tears in his eyes, “not for any reason. Just stay home. Make your father proud. Make beautiful furniture.”  
Jerry nodded, and cried into his Papa’s breast.

***

The wolf was bigger.

It was lots of little things that made it bigger. Like Jerry’s temper being shorter. He had no patience for the children on the schoolyard or the teachers. He was known to get into fist fights.  
“What are you trying to prove, Jerry?” Papa said, “Life doesn’t need to be any harder for us right now.”

“I know that, Papa.”

“Then why can’t you just settle?”

Jerry couldn’t answer that with words.

He was so angry he hurt Red again, much to his dismay. Red forgave him, though, and Granny Hope called for a break. She offered the kids a warm berry tea.

“Strength isn’t all swordfights and matches,” she said as she removed the teabags, “this is strength, too. One must know when to mend oneself.”

“I’ll be fine, Grandma,” Red said, “it’s just a bruise.”

“I know that, Little Red, and I wasn’t talking to you,” she turned to Jerry, “you’ve suffered a terrible blow, recently.”

“My Father,” Jerry said, and put on a strong face, “I’m OK, though. It’s my Papa I need to worry about.”

“I can tell you do,” Granny Hope said, “and he worries about you.”

“Well, he shouldn’t,” Jerry said quickly.

“And why is that?”

Jerry couldn’t say.

“I worry about you, too,” Red said.

“Why?!”

Red and Granny Hope both looked a little off put by that exclamation. Jerry gritted his teeth and let himself drink a gulp of hot berry tea. Mmmm. This really did feel good going down.

Red took his hand, “When I was a little girl, my mom- didn’t come home,” Granny Hope looked away, “I was so scared and so upset,” she chuckled, “I tell everybody the reason I want to become a great sword fighter is to kill all the monsters in the Black Forest. But really, sometimes I feel like if get to be good enough, maybe my swordsmanship can bring her back.”  
\  
“Red,” Granny Hope said, and Red put up a hand.

“I know, I know,” she said, “it doesn’t work that way. But it feels that way. It’s been so long, Jerry, and there’s not a single day that I don’t want her back,” she squeezed his hand, “you know, if you ever feel ready to talk about your Father, you can talk to me.”

Jerry was terribly moved by this. How wonderful his friend was. He loved her. He wanted to tell her everything. How could he? He couldn’t even mention his Father’s death at the teeth of werewolves without having to talk about werewolves in general and-

“Do you hate werewolves, Red?”

“Of course,” Red said, “after what they did to your father, how could I not? They're cowardly, evil being, and their lives are worthless. I’ll slay any werewolf I see on sight.”

“Well then,” Granny Hope said, “it’s a good thing you’ll never see one- you’re never going into the cursed Black Forest.”

“Of course, Grandma. But if they came here-”

“That’s enough fanciful talk out of you.”

Jerry gulped down his tea.

***

The full moon came and Jerry did what he always did- herbing his Papa to sleep and locking himself in the closet. But the next day there were scratches on the door and blood on the wood.

“Jerry, this has gone on long enough. You have to stop it now. You’re not a little boy, you’re a man. No more closet sleeps,” Papa said, scrubbing the blood out of the floor, “don’t you realize this makes it harder?”

“I’m sorry,” Jerry choked. He didn’t remember scratching at the door.

The next full moon, he tried sleeping in his room. When he woke up the next day, the window was open, there was a dead, partially eaten chicken on the floor, and a gross feeling in his stomach.  
He washed the blood out and got rid of all the evidence, but the chicken kept him rolling in his bed all month. He had hurt a chicken. He had hurt and killed a living thing with his jaws and he didn’t even remember it.

“Why won’t you talk to me, Jerry?” Papa asked, “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

“I’m fine, Papa, really.”

“Jerry, you smashed the fruit bowl when I asked you about school.”

Jerry had gotten a cut on his arm from crushing the bowl in his hands. He tried not to touch it.

“I’ll save up money to get you a new one.”

“No- Jerr- that’s not-” Papa sighed, “please just tell me what’s wrong. I’m scared. I feel like I’ve lost you just like I’ve lost your Father.”  
But it was impossible to Jerry to talk.

The next full moon, he broke his promise.


End file.
